


far-off follies

by euphania



Category: Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, post-Lise and pre-Pierre meeting, we need more marya playing the clavichord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 04:47:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10824054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphania/pseuds/euphania
Summary: Haunted by the loss of Lise and the loneliness of the house, the Bolkonsky residents try to find a moment of peace.





	far-off follies

 

It’s late.

Andrei should be able to feel that still, but it’s been so many nights since he’s been in bed before two, so many nights since he’s actually slept for more than thirty minutes, that the darkness outside his windows has just become something calm and compressing, not a sign of sleep and silent holiness. “Late” doesn’t mean anything anymore.

He’s in the sitting-room with Marya, who he believes is only here instead of asleep to make everything seem less alone. She’s reading some book from the library, her eyes not moving from page to page. They’re truly brother and sister; Andrei has been staring at Bilibin’s letters in the same exact way for the past thirty minutes, not understanding a word but pretending that they’re something to care about. Marya sniffles and decisively turns a page. Aside that and their breathing, the room is silent. Andrei swears, sometimes it seems like he and his sister are the only _live_ people in the whole house…

Bourienne enters, and Andrei’s face hardens as he remembers her existence. Make that three people, then.

“ _Nicolas dort,_ ” Bourienne declares in her purple French, sighing dramatically against the doorway, leaving it cracked as to hear any sounds Nikolenka might make.

“ _C’est fantastique,_ ” Marya responds with sincerity. “I was starting to worry. Perhaps now, we can sleep ourselves.”

“Don’t,” Andrei says abruptly, not looking up from the letters from Bilibin on the table. “If he’s only just gone to sleep, who’s to say he will stay that way.”

“It’s late, _André,_ ” Marya sighs. “We’ve passed midnight. If possible, we… _I_ must sleep. Stay awake by yourself, if you please.”

Andrei winces, then again when he realizes that Marya sees. Her face quickly folds into pity, and Andrei squeezes his eyes shut as if in deep, strenuous thought.

“Please don’t, Masha.”

Marya purses her lips, pausing.

“If you insist,” she concedes, and Andrei nods, the vice around his stomach lessening in the slightest.

“If we are to stay up again,” Bourienne says after a pause, “we could use a distraction. _Je reviendrais._ ” She leaves the sitting-room as unwarranted as she came, and the two Bolkonskys are left alone.

“ _André,_ ” Marya says as soon as she leaves, turning so that her large, glittering, doe-like eyes meet with her brother’s. Andrei stiffens under her gaze, the line in his forehead deepening. In the moment, all Marya’s kindness and love do nothing but irritate him.

“You seem so tired.”

“There is no time for sleep anymore,” he states. Despite his hardened gaze, Marya walks up to him with heavy steps and kisses him on the forehead, one hand around the cross on her neck.

“Maybe Bourienne is right,” she whispers. “If we cannot sleep, the least we can do is relax. Forget it all for a moment.” Andrei wants to believe her.

“I doubt it, if these letters can’t,” he says sarcastically, opening his hand so Marya can press it.

Bourienne returns now, knocking the door open with her hip. In her arms, she’s holding a book of sheet music.

“For the clavichord,” she breathes, opening the book to a mazurka.

“Amélie, that’s piano music,” Marya says. “One can’t play a mazurka on a clavichord.”

Bourienne huffs. “Perhaps it’s better on clavichord.”

Marya smiles with an air of superiority and says, “ _Non, chérie._ ” Bouriene’s self-assured grin falters.

“Oh, Masha, go ahead and try,” Andrei says. “You were the one who hoped to relax.” He finishes with a sarcastic, teasing smile. Marya turns to him and stares; Andrei feels her trying to see his real intent and feeling underneath it all. He lets her and he realizes, he is _so_ tired.

Marya takes the book from Bourienne and sets it against the stand, her fingers hovering over the keys of the clavichord. She hesitates as she skims the page.

“I’m not sure if this is going to—”

“ _Mon Dieu, Marie, jouez!_ ” Bourienne implores. “It does not have to be the mazurka. Just play something _happy._ We could all use it.”

With the mazurka requirement out of the way, Marya takes a breath, thinks, and begins to play.

The clavichord notes are twangy and bronze, and, while the song starts slow, the tempo increases, the sounds becoming infused with the tired joy and faith inherent to Marya. It’s most definitely not a mazurka, but it’s beautiful, clear, and alive. Bourienne sways to the music, trying to find some rhythm she can follow. When she does, she counts the beats under her breath, floating around the room in careful circles. Marya’s playing becomes more and more intoxicating, time passing fluidly and hazily. Andrei finds himself far away from the reality he once knew, and a youth hidden inside him taps the surface of his mind. His face softens and his shoulders relax. His head spins.

Bourienne catches his eye, not stopping her solo dance. She extends her arms to him. Not quite himself, Andrei accepts the invitation.

It takes them a minute to dance together, but Andrei has always dominated the ballroom, and soon they are moving together in a quiet, easy, and gentle way. Andrei has never liked Bourienne, never found her breathy French charming or felt compelled to return her smiles, but in this moment she is nothing but another dancer, another person, another part of the music.

Marya looks up from her clavichord to see her brother and her companion twirling together, a half-smile on Bourienne’s face and a radiant, childlike wonder and confusion on Andrei’s. She speeds up the song, relishes in watching the two of them adapt to her beat. Andrei can hear her happy laughter, and in an inexplicable moment, he is laughing, too, and Bourienne is giggling and smiling and squeezing his shoulder with her hand, staring at the ceiling. Desperately, Andrei breathes, and he’s no longer pretending to focus on something else; this is all there is, this is all there’ll ever be, he and his sister and a Frenchwoman in a sitting-room in an empty, empty house. The concepts of a newborn son, a dead wife, a father at war, and a man called Bonaparte are far-off follies. Andrei keeps laughing, wholly and truthfully, and Marya’s playing doesn’t seem to have an end.

Except things cannot last.

There is a wailing echoing down the halls, and the reality of Nikolenka and the angel statue outside slams Andrei back into his right mind. The music vanishes, Bourienne draws away from him, Marya takes her fingers off the keys, and Andrei wants to cry, cry so childishly and so necessarily, cry like his own darling son whose mother he hated and left and will never see again and can never atone.

Marya rushes off to attend to the child. Bourienne follows. Andrei is left alone in the sitting-room, a clavichord to his left and Bilibin’s letters about the campaign on a table to his right. If he tries hard enough, he can hear his sister shushing his son, trying without knowing how to calm him.

 _Nothing lasts,_ Andrei thinks. _Nothing but this single life._

Nikolenka keeps wailing, and Andrei wonders if a father’s grace can calm that, but he doesn’t try to find out. His face resets itself into stone, his heart and stomach slow, and, so tired and spun around that he finally cannot think, Andrei goes to bed to stare out the window until morning, like he has for so many nights before. It’s late, after all.


End file.
